Do we need jaded teachers today? The debate is still on

One time, the teacher was the storehouse of knowledge. That will no longer be so. So what would a teacher do? A very good teacher will play the role of augmenter 

— Shiv Nadar, Indian billionaire industrialist and philanthropist

Teachers are supposed to lead their students with their depth of knowledge and dedication to their profession. But sometimes, we come across instances of the blind leading the blind as reported in the media in early December 2019. But first, the facts.

As many as 16 teach­ers of state-run schools in Madhya Pradesh, which reported the worst Class X and Class XII ex­am­i­na­tion results in the 2018/2019 aca­demic ses­sion and also failed to qual­ify two ex­am­i­na­tions to as­sess their teach­ing pro­fi­ciency in June and Oc­to­ber 2019, have been com­pul­so­rily re­tired by the Mad­hya Pradesh gov­ern­ment.

School Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Prab­hu­ram Choudhary said, “Two ex­am­i­na­tions were con­ducted for teach­ers of Class X and XII MP Board for Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion. The results were very poor — rang­ing be­tween zero and 30 per cent. Some 5,891 teach­ers in var­i­ous sub­jects were iden­ti­fied and put through a qual­i­fy­ing exam on June 12, 2019. Shock­ingly, 1,351 of those teach­ers failed to se­cure the nec­es­sary 50% qual­i­fy­ing marks,” he said. “Those who failed were given two months of train­ing and time to pre­pare for the se­cond qual­i­fi­ca­tion exam con­ducted on Oc­to­ber 14. Not only was the qual­i­fy­ing marks low­ered from 50% to 33%, but they were even al­lowed to take the exam with textbooks. But still, 84 failed,” said Choudhary.

A high-level com­mit­tee was con­sti­tuted, which rec­om­mended that 16 of the 84 teach­ers who failed both ex­ams and had ei­ther com­pleted 20 years in ser­vice or at­tained 50 years of age be com­pul­so­rily re­tired. Twenty teach­ers who didn’t come un­der the above cat­e­gory faced de­part­men­tal en­quiry while 26 who were tasked for pri­mary teach­ing but found en­gag­ing se­nior classes were re­verted.  

Many questions arise. Why were these dismal facts not found earlier? Why teachers qualified to teach lower classes were given higher classes? Why refresher courses were not held for teachers? Who protected the jaded teachers and for what price? Why should the supervising officials go scot-free?